Pages From Zackeria’s Diary

Diary and diarrhea are not particularly comparable, not at least in any scientific sense. My father always used to say that if there is an elephant in the room, you should point it out. One time he said it while pointing at mother. He slept that night on the kitchen floor and spent the subsequent weeks making his own food. God bless his soul, he cried for days after mother died. I had never seen him cry before, or since. God bless both their souls.

I always wondered how the elephant entered the room. Surely the doors could not be large enough, were they destroyed then rebuilt for the mere purpose of getting an elephant inside? How big would this room need to be? None of the rooms I am in on a regular basis are capable of housing an elephant. The only way I can make sense of it is if the elephant is air lifted into a room. But then the room would have no roof. Is it still a room if it has no roof? What if it has no doors? Are four walls enough to make a room? What about four lines? A room is still a room with no doors, right? Like a rose is still a rose with or without thorns.

How do we know if elephants forget or not? Has there been a study? Do they never forget? Are they immune to amnesia or old age memory loss? So what if they never forget, of what use is that? Not that everything must be of use, but still. I use computers to store information, sure they forget from time to time. But so what? At least they store information in English. What language would an elephant store? How would you ever get that information back? It’s complicated, but what isn’t?

Diarrhea, the word made sure to find it’s way into every naggers brain. What is with people and rhymes? Why ever would I be sitting in a tree? Were all the couches and swings taken? And there are so many things that end in the letter g. At some point I couldn’t take it anymore, I had to get back at these people. The school administration did not appreciate the stunt that I pulled. No matter how much I tried to explain that the package was just play-doh, mud and a little bit of sulphur, they would not listen. They were intent on punishing me. In the end they charged me with breaking and entering into the lockers. I told them I found them open, all four of them. They wouldn’t charge me for breaking into the locker if I was to, for instance, leave a thank you note or some candy.

But it worked. They didn’t nag me for years after that. I think it was the sulphur.